


Reading Between the Lines

by Raiven_Raine



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Shenanigans, Soldier Antics, Tumblr Prompt, debriefings suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 03:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7874869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raiven_Raine/pseuds/Raiven_Raine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/baph0maidn/pseuds/baph0maidn"> Baph0Maidn</a> did me up a tarot reading prompt! (and I finally finished it!)</p><div class="center">
  <p> - - - - - - - - - - </p>
</div><i>Devil upright; 2 of pentacles reversed. SO: has to begin with an obsession & end with an embarrassment.</i><div class="center">
  <p> - - - - - - - - - - </p>
</div>Paladin Gavin was given a team and a simple mission.<p>Recon. </p><p>However, recon is boring as fuck... So they made it fun. </p><p>Read fun: Incredibly destructive to Brotherhood property and blatant misuse of personnel, explosives, power armor, and weaponry.</p><p>Also, Lucky's vertibird gets trashed.</p><div class="center">
  <p> - - - - - - - - - -</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Between the Lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baph0maidn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baph0maidn/gifts).



> kay, so I can't really write in first person very well, this is pretty much my first attempt at it. i can barely read first person so i don't have a lot to compare to. i figured i'd challenge myself and do a couple little first person bits as an experiment. forewarning... i'm not the best with it.

  
  
  
  
  


****

###  \- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

****

Two hundred years changed a lot of shit in the military. I was immediately hit upside the head with how physical reprimands worked. Literally. You know back in my day, a superior officer wasn’t allowed to just cold clock your ass for disobedience. The food and the dick jokes were still the same, however... Both terrible.

Debriefings still sucked ass, and never in any good sort of way. Especially when it was a delightful cocktail mix of debriefing and reprimanding. 

Today’s cocktail consisted of one part humiliation, two parts i’m-in-so-much-fucking-trouble, and a squeeze of lemon in the form of wounded egos… Shaken, not stirred, and served over five Brotherhood soldiers by bartender Maxson… Garnished with soul crushing heated glares of utter disappointment and tempered rage.

He slowly paced the line of us as we stood still as fucking statues. I had a terrible itch on my nose, because there’s always some itch that appears when you have to stand at attention or parade rest for a pissed the fuck off superior. Maxson stopped in front of me and narrowed his eyes. My itch suddenly disappeared, much like I wanted to do in that moment.

“Thirty-One landmines. Twenty grenades. Two laser rifles. Two suits of power armor. One vertibird.” 

And how he could turn the hardest battle worn soldier into a complete gooey centered mess inside with just that look and his voice was a neat trick I really need to learn how to master one day. I’m sure I would abuse that superpower constantly.

Maxson was undoubtedly counting to five slowly in his head to keep from yelling. “You may have been promoted and given a squad, _Paladin,_ but this flagrant misuse and waste of Brotherhood equipment and crew is unacceptable.” 

I flinched at his words. I couldn’t help it. Maxson was probably going to give the lot of us a flying lesson off the Pryd for this one. 

_Aim for the water._

LC Kells calmly flipped through a file. “The damages to the aircraft, as well as the armor and weapons, are quite substantial.”

Silence filled the room. 

Well, near silence. 

A Scribe was sitting behind me somewhere scratching incessantly on paper as she transcribed everything. The pen scratches were somehow the loudest thing in the world. Louder than my heart pounding in my head threatening to pop at any moment. That’s not how I had imagined myself dying. Well, not while fully clothed, at any rate.

“Your mission was reconnaissance,” Maxson continued, “Everything else after that needs to be approved beforehand. You’re a Paladin and you’re expected to act according to protocol and decorum.” 

He stepped back and his eyes shot little shards of ice right through each of us in turn. Aleski, Bailey, Crewe and Lucci. How could Kells hand pick this particular group and expect us not to get into trouble? He had set us up nice and neat to knock down and I was the one-pin… Front and center. 

“So…” The Elder swept an arm out, “From the top. What the hell happened out there?”  
  


****

###  \- - - - - - - - Between the Lines - - - - - - - - 

****

_\-- We were out on recon in Far Harbor, collecting important items and documents as we came across them (Because Quinlan has a hardon for manilla folders… Is there a kink for that?). The place is worse off than the Commonwealth. Utterly destroyed and devastated doesn't even begin to cover it. We didn’t find anything interesting._

**\- - - - - - - -**

“This place is a boring-as-shit fuck-fest.” Lucky stood, leaning against the chair in her bird, as the armored soldiers piled in once more.

Gavin climbed in and held an object up triumphantly. “Yeah, but look what I found!”

Aleski had remained in the Aircraft to guard as she and the Lancer awaited their return. She plucked the colored plastic hunk of shit out of his hands and turned it around to look it over. “What the hell is this?!”

“It’s a garden gnome!” Gav spoke as Lucky took the thing from her in turn. 

Bailey poked at it. “It’s creepy as fuck, is what it is.”

“Shut your cock trap, it’s fucking awesome.” Gavin snatched it back and slipped it inside one of the secured cargo bags on the back seat meant for items of interest.

“Whatever floats your strange ass boat.” Lucky sat back down and sighed, “Where to now?”  
  


****

###  \- - - - - - - - 

****

_\-- We ran across some hostiles that were organized like raiders (read: bullet catchers). We easily cleared their small camp of seven without incident and commandeered some meds. Again, we found nothing of real interest outside of the med sups. (Whiskey most definitely counts as a medical supply.)_

**\- - - - - - - -**

“What the fuck?!” Lucky watched as Gavin trotted back to the aircraft with another fucking gnome.

Bailey, on his guard rotation, was laughing as he stood next to the Lancer and watched as the Paladin held the damn thing up like some sort of magical object to be revered. 

Again, they piled back into the aircraft and Gavin tucked the stupid thing away in the bag.

“It was great!” Aleski laughed and rapped Gav on the chest with her metal knuckles. “There were these raider type assholes… They opened fire on us so we laid them all the fuck down and G found that thing in one of their beds.”

Bailey snorted, “Wash that shit…”

“In acid.” Crewe added.

The Lancer crossed her arms over her chest in a small huff. “You guys get to have all the fun… How bout another one of you sits here with their thumb up their ass waiting and I go hunt strange bearded sex toys?”

Crewe gently pushed her backwards to plop down into her seat. “You already have a bearded sex toy.”  
  


****

###  \- - - - - - - - 

****

_\-- There were strange (scary-as-fuck Swamp Things) creatures in the fog, but they didn’t prove too challenging. One of them got inside the vertibird and scratched it up a little._

**\- - - - - - - -**

“Lucky! Turn back!” Aleski leaned out of the open side of the bird where the gatling gun, taken out to make space, was usually mounted.

The Lancer banked around in a wide arc and sat up in her seat to see what Al was pointing to below. “What is it?” 

Gavin stepped beside the Knight and scanned the area. 

When the Paladin started laughing, Lucky hovered the craft and spotted it. Another one. Bright red sticking up out of the muck of a swamp. “I can’t fucking land in that shit-soup…” 

“I need that gnome.” Gav leaned out of the doorway a little more. 

“You need that thing like you need a dick growing out of your forehead.” Bailey spoke quietly behind him.

Crewe childishly snorted, “You’d be a dick-head…”

“He doesn’t need a dick on his fucking head to be a dick-head.” Lucci glanced over her shoulder and smirked.

“Shut up and color...” Gavin didn’t look away from his target as he pushed himself from the bird and jumped into the muck below. 

“Godfuckingdammit!” Lucky growled as the sudden weight shift tilted her bird slightly. Oh, and also Gavin just jumped out of her _fucking_ bird into a _fucking_ swamp full of who _fucking_ knew what!

As he splashed into the knee deep water along the bank of the disgusting swamp, Gavin froze. The strange little light plants moved... Then rose up out of the water. 

“What the shit is that?!” Bailey lifted his weapon.

The weird creatures lumbered out of the water after Gavin. Five. Five pissed the fuck off light bulb faced, water deathclaw... _things._

Lucky brought her bird down as low as she dared and took it parallel with the beasts, flying to the side of them as they moved. And at two feet above ground, it was a pretty impressive maneuver.

Bailey knelt down and Aleski fired from over his shoulder, Crewe at her side. They crowded the door and emptied rounds into the things as they tore after the Paladin.

The aircraft suddenly jerked to the side as another one of them reached up from the water and latched onto the bird. It scrambled up inside behind the Lancer’s seat, throwing stinking mud everywhere and clawing anything it could to gain purchase as it tried to wedge its entire body inside and grab the Knights. 

A large webbed (hand?) slapped against the top of Lucky’s seat and she ducked down just in time to avoid the sharp claws. She heard fabric shred behind her… “Get that fucking thing off my shit!” 

Aleski spun around and planted a metal boot hard against the creature’s face. It clawed desperately at the aircraft, the earsplitting sound of sharp animal claws raking against steel made Lucci flinch as she fought to keep the bird level while the large creature thrashed around in the back. Al kicked the thing again and it slid back, finally falling out the doorway, clawing at everything as it went. As it flailed, two claws hooked the strap of Aleski’s weapon and sliced it. Her rifle was jerked from her hand and dropped into the water after the beast. 

“Fuck!” She peered out the door. 

_Welp, so much for that rifle..._

Lucky took the bird forward, past the group of wounded, angry beasts, up to Gavin. Crewe and Bailey reached out and grabbed him, helping him clamber awkwardly back into the aircraft. They hefted Gav up and dropped him on the scratched up floor with a loud scraping thud.

The Paladin sat up with some difficulty and raised his hand, holding his prize triumphantly above his head. 

They all laughed as adrenaline subsided. 

Lucky hadn’t seen the damage to her baby bird yet...  
  


****

###  \- - - - - - - - 

****

_\-- We did discover some Super Mutants out there on the Island. We did our duty and took them out as we found them. We had to use a couple landmines to clear a den and it went pretty smoothly. (About as smooth as a ghoul’s ass.) My armor, as well as Knight Bailey’s was damaged a little when a few big rocks hit them. (When half a mountain crushed them.)_

**\- - - - - - - -**

Lucky stared up at the roof of the aircraft. The creature had managed to claw up the entire fucking interior. _Including the damn roof._

“It ain’t so bad…” It was Crewe’s turn to guard, “That’ll buff right out.”

“Are you fucking serious?!” Lucky motioned angrily to the deep gashes across the floor then to the walls and finally to her seat. _Her seat!_ The entire top half sported three huge fourteen inch rips in the fabric. “I’ll buff _you_ right out, you ball gargling thunder-cunt!”

“Hey!” He held his hands out toward her. “Not my fault! Calm your tits…”

She glared for a moment then slumped her shoulders and sighed, “I know… I’m going to take one of those damn gnomes and shove it up Pally G’s ass.”

Crewe laughed, “Awe, c’mon Lucky… Admit this makes recon so much more entertaining.”

She glanced around at the damage and snorted. Then laughed. The situation had been ridiculous. And, yeah… Kinda fun. Even though her bird was tore the fuck up and smelling like rotten deviled eggs and piss. 

Aleski approached the aircraft, climbed inside, and opened the secured explosives crate. Lucci watched silently as the Knight pulled several landmines out, one by one, and carefully placed them into a canvas sack. Al paused, eyed the contents of the sack, then added three grenades… For good measure. 

“Kay… But why?” Lucky tilted her head and motioned to the bag. 

“Muties.” Aleski hefted the bag over one shoulder and hopped back out of the aircraft. 

The Lancer watched her walk back down the hill. “Fuck this shit, I gotta see this!” She jumped out and trotted off after the Knight. 

Crewe leaned out the door and called after, “You can’t leave! Get back here, Jessy!”  
  


**\- - - - -**

Gavin had left his power armor back up on the hill and he was in the field placing landmines carefully around the opening of a mutie occupied cavern. Bailey’s armor was standing, empty, behind a small copse of trees.

“The fuck?” Lucky whispered as she snuck up and crouched down in the brush to watch.

Bailey grinned, “We’re gunna lure the uglies out…”

“Why not just chuck some pinecones in there and turn ‘em into kibble?” Lucci squinted as she watched Gav cautiously creep into the entrance of the cave past a dead lookout they had taken down prior. Just before he was about to reply, Lucky sighed pointedly, “No, wait… Lemme guess… There’s a fucking gnome in there.”

crouching in her armor behind a nearby rock, Aleski motioned to the trap. “Also, this is way more fun.”

A smile crept over the Lancer’s face and she nodded, “Yeah… This should be interesting, for sure.” 

As it would turn out, the ordeal was, indeed, interesting… To say the least. Well thought out? No. But interesting, most definitely. 

The Paladin came running out of the cave with two goddamn gnomes, one tucked firmly under each arm.

An explosion from deep inside the cavern shook the ground… Then another. A group of Muties chased Gav out, but he had managed to run off to the side and hide behind some rocks and they lost him. 

Then they spotted Bailey’s empty power armor behind the trees. The bastards moved around for a clear shot at it and it was over faster than it had begun… And it ended with a hailstorm of dirt, rocks, blood and gore. 

Another explosion from inside the cavern was suddenly followed by a quick series of much larger ones… _There were mini nukes in there._

_“Fuck me!!”_ Lucci ducked down as bits of mutant and dirt pelted her helmet and shoulders. 

Bailey suddenly grabbed her by the back of the vest and jerked her to her feet. “The bird!”

Sure as shit, the hill started to collapse as the huge den caved in on itself… And the Vertibird was right on top of that hill. 

No time to get back in their power armor, Gav and Bailey ran up the hill with Lucky and Al right behind. 

“Crewe! Kick the bird!” Lucky yelled as she crested the top of the hill, little bits of ground moving under her feet in spots.

“The fuck?! I don’t know how to--” Crewe quickly ducked back inside the aircraft. 

Lucky practically dove inside with the others and scrambled around Crewe to hit the switch. “ _Fuck…_ Not goddamn rocket science. _Move!”_

He stepped back and motioned to the dash, “There’s about three hundred fucking switches and buttons and--”

The earth under the vertibird shifted suddenly and it jolted to the side then dropped down a few feet. Then a few more feet. 

_“Fuck!”_ Lucky growled as the earth started to cave in around the bird and pull it to one side. 

Unsecured items slid across the scratched floor and out the open side of the aircraft. One such item was Crewe’s rifle. 

Aleski slid the door closed just short of catching the weapon and braced herself as the bird tilted violently, nearly touching one wing to the ground. 

_And fuck that weapon right along with Aleski’s in the swamp._

She and Crewe suddenly rushed to the opposite end and rammed their power armor into the side to correct the tilt, which somehow worked like a charm. The bird jerked and lurched upward as the ground fell away below them, crumbling with a loud roar of rocks, trees and dust.

A large dead tree fell to the side as it was swallowed by the earth and it hit the aircraft across the windshield hard enough to shatter it completely on one side. 

“Are you fucking serious?!” Lucky pitched and turned away from the collapsing hillside.  
  


****

###  \- - - - - - - - 

****

_We came across a large hotel along the southeastern edge of the island. Harbor Grand Hotel. The place was well worth a closer inspection. It was also overrun with a host of muties. I decided to run a sweep to find anything of value. There were tech docs and med sups in abundance. I feel the amount of force used justified the gains. (When it comes to muties, there is no such thing as overkill.)_

**\- - - - - - - -**

“Think Maxson’s going to kill us?” Aleski stood next to Lucky in the bird as they stared at Gavin’s busted up armor in the back. He had borrowed Al’s armor after they’d dug his and Bailey’s out of the collapsed hillside. At least B’s armor was in working order. _Mostly._

“Probably.” Lucci sighed and leaned against the back of her seat, no longer caring that everything was covered in dried swamp muck and glass.

“Well… It was an honor serving with you.” Aleski gave a quick half-hearted mock salute. 

“Mm-hmm…” Lucky wiped a thumb over a cut under her eye, wrinkled her nose at the bit of blood, then wiped it on her vest among the dried splatters of mutie guts. She grumbled lightly as she pushed herself forward and rubbed a finger through the dirt covering Gav’s chest plate. 

_\-- osculum mihi asinum --_

Everything looks so much more elegant in Latin, even if it is ‘kiss my ass’.

A sudden staticy radio transmission from Gav broke through Lucky’s admiration of her love note.

“Comin' in hot… Rooftop southwest.” 

Lucky poked her head out the door next to Al. “Fucking hell…” She jumped in her seat, her tore the fuck up seat, and flicked the switch. She made a face at the whining sound the left rotor made as it kicked on. 

Sure as shit, Crewe, Bailey and Gavin were tearing across the roof with a line of muties in pursuit. 

The muties were gaining on them, the fucking hounds, in particular. Crewe armed a landmine as he ran and set it behind, then Bailey set another. They had no more. 

Muties are smarter than credited, but not by much. They did well to avoid the mines, four of them lining up neatly along the side of the roof. 

Lucky dropped her bird a couple feet and pitched to the side, taking the tips of her blades on one side right across the line. It was a beautiful mess. 

The others immediately took cover and started firing on the vertibird, forcing the Lancer to dip down and around the building for cover. 

“Jess, catch me!” Gavin jumped from the roof. He didn’t even hesitate. 

“Gav don’t--” She took the bird forward and tilted to the side as he fell from above, just barely missing the wing.

He slammed into the side, just below the door, and caught himself on the stairs and frame. The aircraft jerked violently, but Lucky compensated immediately. This wasn’t the first time she’d played catch. 

Crewe and Bailey lept from the roof and continued running while Gavin directed the Lancer around to the side they’d started from.

A few shots pinged off the bird from above as she passed the muties gathering along the rooftop. 

“Stand-off!” Gavin crouched down with his weapon trained on a middle floor window. 

Lucky put as much distance as she could between them and the hotel as Gav fired. 

He didn’t shoot a mutie. Or a hound. Or anything she’d expected. They had filled the room and hallways with grenades and the remaining mines… And he had shot one sitting in the window sill. 

The explosion was impressive, to say the very least. There had to have been more mini-nukes stored inside somewhere.

And, as it would turn out, there was no safe distance she could have ever been from the fallout.

Bricks and wood rocketed into the air violently from the central rooms and rained down in a storm of debris. Bits and pieces thumped against the aircraft even from a half-klick away.

Lucky pitched the belly of her bird toward the onslaught until it died down, then she circled wide to pick up the rest of her team. The building collapsed in on itself and a few more latent explosions tossed more rubble into the air every so often. 

“Ho-ly shit!” Lucci stared as she landed for the others to climb in. “That… Was fucking awesome!”

“That was fucking overkill!” Aleski watched a few more bits of the once-hotel drop from the sky through the enormous cloud of dust in the distance.

“There was a hostage situation…” Gavin dug through one of the canvas sacks Crewe had set in the bird, “And we do not negotiate with terrorists.”

He pulled out two more gnomes. “We managed to rescue the civilians.”

“I hate you so much.” Lucky sighed.

“I’m a hero.” Gavin stuffed the things in his gnome-stash sack. 

“You’re a menace.” She glared.

He took his helmet off and smiled, “You love me, anyway.”

Lucky tried to keep her angry mask on, but it cracked and she smiled. “Love to hate you.”

She knocked her knuckles against his armor and cocked her chin to the setting sun, “So this day has been real fun and all… But we gotta unass from this CATFU shitshow ASAP.”

Crewe was drawing a dick in the dirt of Gavin’s busted suit, “Maxson’s going to murder us.”

“That will be the icing on top of this shit-cake.” Bailey snorted as he smacked Crewe’s hand away from his beautiful artwork. 

“How about we leave out a few details?” Aleski poked a finger at the gnome-sack.

“Best recon ever…” Gav grinned like a fucking idiot.

And Lucky laughed her agreement.  
  


****

###  \- - - - - - - - 

****

Maxson glared in silence for a very long time.

He’d definitely be the man to bet on in a staring contest. Pretty sure my tail couldn’t have been tucked more firmly between my legs at that moment. I couldn’t stand looking at his steel blue eyes, so I settled on his mouth. His lip twitched. That couldn’t be good. 

“You mean to tell me you destroyed an entire hotel for one box of documents, ammunition and medical supplies?”

My eyes fell to his chest, “The place was overrun with muties, the decision was tactically--”

“And you somehow lost two rifles, nearly destroyed your power armor, and managed to accumulate all that damage to the vertibird while following regulation protocol?”

And then my eyes dropped to his feet. “I may have went a little outside the lines…”

“What prompted you to act so carelessly?” He crossed his arms and managed to stand up even taller.

How in the hell did he always make me feel like the little kid in these situations? I was older than him by a good ten years, dammit! 

The scribe’s pen stopped scratching. She was waiting to transcribe my reply. Well, fuck. 

Deep breath. “Boredom… Sir.”

In hindsight, that wasn’t the best answer I could have given, but it was the most honest thing I’d said in the past hour. 

Kells dropped his folder on the table. “It’s not supposed to be fun and games, Paladin. You’re expected to--”

Maxson held a hand out to him and he closed his mouth. He didn’t need to finish whatever he was saying, his dark eyes wounded just as effectively. Right to the gut, shrapnel to the chest. Ouch. 

“Is there anything else you’d like to add?” The Elder tilted his head ever so slightly. 

One last chance. 

I glanced at Lucky standing beside me. She shook her head ‘no’ just barely. She knew Maxson was an expert at reading between the lines. We all knew. 

“No, Sir.” There was nothing more I _\--wanted--_ to add. 

More silence. 

Say something. Yell. Hit me for fuck’s sake, but silence is torture. Cruel and unusual punishment. 

“Well, then this debriefing is over.” Maxson dropped his arms and took a step back. 

That… Was too easy. 

“I just have one more question, Paladin.” The Elder cocked his chin. 

I knew it. 

“Can you explain this?” He swept a hand out to a squire standing in the doorway. 

The kid stepped inside, handed Kells a canvas bag and… _well shit._ He grabbed the bottom and dumped it out. Gnomes tumbled across the floor of the command deck. One of them rolled and hit Maxson in the boot, staring up at him with a cheery red-cheeked smile. 

I completely lost my shit right there as Lucky started giggling uncontrollably, followed by Aleski and the other Knights. 

_Delirium._

The look on his face only made it worse. We were all about to be keel hauled and all I could manage to do was laugh.

_Aim for the water…_  
  


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###  \- - - - - - - - 

****

Coulda been worse, I suppose.

Kells said something about teaching us the meaning of the word 'boredom'… So we got firewatch. So much firewatch. It was nice of him to keep it at least somewhat entertaining. 

He’d dressed us up in special armor. By special I mean horrific… And by armor I mean he made us dress like gnomes. 

The Lancer Captain planted us in his airport garden and made us stand completely still while soldiers questioned our sanity. Loudly. With a lot of colorful language and laughter.

Kells was kind enough to make me hold a potted plant in lieu of the oxygen I'd wasted in the debriefing. I named it Stanlee.

I’m sure I learned some things somewhere along the line… But the biggest lesson I received was…

Being a gnome is difficult… And embarrassing as fuck. 

 

_… Worth it._  
  


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End file.
